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ON RAISING KIDS: Cultural differences can confuse parents

Q: We have a 9-year-old daughter and a 6 1/2-year-old son. I grew up in Japan for 20 years, and my husband and I have different opinions about teaching methods. What would be a good approach to achieve congruence and do the best for our children?

A: Parents who are raised in two cultures can struggle with differing approaches to parenting. What can seem like normal expectations in Japanese culture may seem like something else to a parent brought up in the United States.

If each parent follows his or her own philosophy, it’s likely that at least one, or perhaps both, of your children will underachieve. It’s also possible that when your children face challenges, they may fear you or consider you mean and look to their father for an easy way out.

This is a good time to talk out your differences and compromise on reasonable philosophies for raising your children. Since neither of you is likely to feel right about adopting the other’s philosophy entirely, you could probably come to an agreement for some areas.

For example, you could decide together on general approaches to study habits, television watching, video game time, sports and extracurricular activity involvement, bedtimes, family meals, etc.

When you have differences that either of you feels like you can’t compromise, each of you can emphasize your priorities and support the other in those priorities.

Here’s an example: Japanese families often insist that children take and practice music lessons. Although some U.S. families would also feel strongly about music, many would more likely give that as a choice to their children.

If you, as the mother who comes from a Japanese background, believe that music is very important, you might ask your husband to support you on strongly encouraging lessons for at least five years, and then permit your children the choice thereafter. That could be a reasonable compromise.

If your husband believes that all children should play sports, and you think they are also important but not as important, you could support your husband on this issue.

If you begin by having some discussions about expectations for your children at this age level, you will be starting an important process. There will be many new topics as your children mature. It’s good for children to see parents discussing differences between themselves and delivering their agreed-on plan to their children. The parents become role models for how to resolve differences.

Even when two parents are brought up in the United States, there are frequent differences based on how the parents were raised. Children move forward best when parents are united, so it’s important to make the effort to compromise and agree.